Earthworm Jim 3D
Earthworm Jim 3D is the third installment in the ''Earthworm Jim'' video game series. Earthworm Jim 3D was first released on the Nintendo console N64 in 1999, and later on Windows PC in 2001. Generally, it was not well received, compared to the popular first two games. Production In the mid-1990s, Shiny Entertainment's Earthworm Jim franchise was strong with two acclaimed video games, an action figure toy line, a comic book mini-series, and an animated television series. Although Shiny had began work on a third video game, it never got past the very earliest stages of pre-production. With the cancellation of the television series, and with Shiny Entertainment being acquired by Interplay Entertainment, David Perry sold the rights to the franchise. Interplay put the Shiny team onto other projects, and the production of the third Earthworm Jim video game was then handed over to new developer VIS Interactive under Interplay. The game then entered a "development hell" for a number of years. VIS began working on the game for PC, but never got beyond porting it to any home video game console. VIS told the gaming magazines that the third installment would be 3D, just as other popular platforms such as Sonic the Hedgehog series had also recently gone 3D. However, VIS also released a lot of other details in pre-production about the game, including elements, features, characters (such as Evil the Cat being replaced by Professor Monkey-For-A-Head as the boss of the Fear level, and Evil Jim not being present at all) and even entire levels which didn't make it to the final cut of the game (such a circus level, Jim snowboarding, riding his Pocket Rocket, and a level where Jim ant-sized). The game was criticized because some of these were still included in the promotional materials, and even on the box of the final released game, but not in the game itself. The final game was based more on the television series than the canon of the previous games, even having Dan Castellaneta coming in to voice Jim. However, the television series had already been off the air for three years when the game came out, thus hurting the game's promotional tie-ins.. Due to the rushed late development cycle, the planned Sony PlayStation port of the game was cancelled. Publisher Rockstar Games eventually took over development, completing the game's development for the Nintendo N64 port. Plot battles Psy-Crow in his Memory]] in Happiness]] Earthworm Jim is hit by a flying cow that sends him into a coma. Jim awakens within his own subconscious, a world created by the psyche of his four brains, and discovers he has gone insane. Jim's past villains have entered his subconscious and if something doesn't happen soon, Jim will be in the coma forever. His super ego has been unleashed within his subconscious to stop the madness. To restore his sanity he must find the Golden Udders of Lucidity, guided by The Sacred Cow of Contemplation and Snott. When Jim enters his subconscious, he finds out that his four mind chambers have been taken over by his worst fears. He must collect Golden Udders to unlock the other three chambers and Green Marbles to unlock the levels within the chamber. Jim defeats four villains who took over his mind chambers, and finally faces the personification of his trauma: Earthworm Kim. At the end of the game, after defeating Earthworm Kim, Peter Puppy directs Jim to follow him out of his mind, when all of a sudden, a large fridge falls and lands on Jim. The words "the end" can be seen on the fridge. The game ends with three snapshots of Jim in his bed: the first one shows him getting up from his coma, the second one shows a cow falling from the sky and over Jim, and the last one shows Jim being crushed by the cow, possibly repeating the process all over again. Levels * Memory * Happiness * Fear * Fantasy Gallery ewj3dboxf.jpg|PC box art ewj3dboxb.jpg|Box rear EWJ-3D.jpg|US N64 box art jim3dwall.jpg|3D artwork jim3d.jpg|3D Jim jimgun3d.jpg|More 3D artwork snott_3d.jpg|Snott assisting Earthworm Jim Images (15).jpg|Snott leading Jim to Marbles elvis_3d.jpg|EWJ with Elvis Images (8).jpg|Elvis again 21435-Earthworm Jim 3D (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)-2.jpg|Golden Udders Images (10).jpg|The Sacred Cow of Contemplation Images.jpg|Earthworm Kim Reception In contrast to the acclaimed earlier two Earthworm Jim games, the reception to Earthworm Jim 3D was overall lukewarm, with even Dave Perry and Douglas TenNapel not being impressed with it.http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2717/digging_for_worms_why_doug_.php GameRankings gave it a score of 59.32% for the N64 versionhttp://www.gamerankings.com/n64/197200-earthworm-jim-3d/index.html and 55.70% for the PC version.http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/89950-earthworm-jim-3d/index.html GameSpot said that the game had "adequate graphics", but "the camera system seems to be on a kamikaze mission to destroy the game".http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/earthworm-jim-3d-review/1900-2544371/ Despite the overall lukewarm reception to the game, Earthworm Jim 3D did still garner some positive reviews. IGN praised the graphics and sound design of the game, rating the game a 7.5 out of 10, despite an "annoying camera system".http://uk.ign.com/articles/1999/10/26/earthworm-jim-3d-2 On MobyGames, the Nintendo 64 version of the game fares better than the Windows version, having a critics score of 70%, and a user rating of 3.1 out of 5.http://www.mobygames.com/game/earthworm-jim-3d See also * Earthworm Jim 3D article on Wikipedia References Category:Games